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Lock the door behind me.

Don't lock the door! (This will take place before we leave, because leaving the room is the last thing to be done.)

Lock the door behind me.

Don't lock the door! (This will take place before we leave, because leaving the room is the last thing to be done.)

(Nah, I'll put it after. I'm not a computer, you know =P).

1. Do five jumping jacks

Turn 23

Almonaster 1: Leave the room.
You grab the door handle, push down and...

...one moment.


Gerrick 1: Throw the one good lamp at the TV.
Unplugging the lamp is easy, if a little damp. Annoying, the TV doesn't break under the force of the lamp. You recover it and hurl it twice more. Each time the lamp bounces off. You broke the lamp more than the TV. Oh well, at least something is shattered beyond repair, not to mention it now matches the other lamp.


Gerrick 2: Jump on the bed.
It's not a very bouncy bed. It nearly takes out your ankles. But, with effort, you manage to give the roof a good, hearty highfive.


Gerrick 3. Drink the water coming from the hole in the wall.
You're halfway through gathering some in your palm when it hits you: this water has filtered its way through a pillow. Your head had been on it. You stare at the water for a few seconds, then shrug and give it a taste.

Blerg. It tastes like car exhaust.


taulover 1: Do five jumping jacks.
Spitting out the water, you hop back on the bed and demonstrate your profound athletic skills. You then get off the bed and do your jumping jacks again, as jumping jacks on a bed isn't efficient at all.


El Fiji Grande 1: Leave the room.
Affairs in order, you leave the room.

It's pitch black outside, so you use the torch to light your way. To your left, more doors, more rooms, all locked when you check them. To your right, the stairwell out.


Almonaster 2: Lock the door behind me.
Behind you, the door sits half open. You pull it to. Your hand automatically lands to the side, to lock the door, but that's a foolish....

There's a latch, a barrel bolt, on this side of the door. You could've sworn that wasn't there when you entered that room. You slowly close the door, then bob down to its eye level. There's a small hole in the door, or rather a few. You open the door and find the "lock," and there is a piece of string on the top and bottom of the lock.

You close and lock the door behind you.

You take a deep breath.


El Fiji Grande 2: Release a blood-curdling scream.
“EEEEYYAAAAAUUUUUUGHHHHHH!!!!”


El Fiji Grande 3: Run.
Throat straining, you peg it to the stairs.

You remember -- you went down those stairs, the first time, so you throw yourself upwards and out. Your backpack slams into you again and again with every step, but you press onwards. Somehow nobody appears. Somehow, even though that door must've ben unlocked by someone, you see nobody.

You slam, at full force, into the doors outside, and your next scream is in frustration as they don't burst open. The button at the side must've lost half its lifespan at the force of your punch, and the doors gently swing open. You shove it as it goes.

For the first time in hours, you're breathing open air.



A breathless laugh escapes you. You're out. You're okay. There's civilization around you. You cup your arms around your mouth and hollar towards the shore, screaming for someone to get you off and far away from the crazy ship and its screwed up sense of hospitality. You hear a rumbling sound -- a helecopter.

After a minute, a bright spotlight spits out from far above. It hits your eyes, blindingly, and you hold up a hand to shield yourself. A voice through a megaphone crackles in an unfamiliar language down at you. You squint and grin and bear it, waving your other hand above your head. You're okay. You're okay.

Black shapes descend from the helecopter and land on the other side of the deck. You head over, relieved to finally be out and ready to talk, extensively, to the law enforcement of wherever you are.



Congratulations! You've Escaped The Room!

Thanks to the efforts of @Kane lives, @Gerrick, @taulover, @El Fiji Grande, @Hydra, and @Almonaster, this escape room has been solved in approximately 27 days (which was my fault), taking 23 turns! Thank you to everyone who took part, neighbours and residents alike, and those who took a peek rather than posting.

When planning this escape room I hoped to use more puzzle puzzles rather than connect-the-dots puzzles. It seems like I did my job a bit too well to the detriment of everyone's fun. Once again, I'm sorry for that. At times my descriptions of your surroundings were insufficient to carry the game forward. Ideally, next time I'd make use of more drawings, but my drawing skills are kinda rubbish, so that's less than ideal. Either way, I’ll have... let’s say… half a year before the next game. I have an idea for it. Well, three well developed settings and one blurry half thought, but I know what I’m going to present you all next, so I have plenty of time to prepare and perhaps be a little more careful in my puzzle construction.

Just for fun, here's the "map" of the puzzles:

Spoiler

Layer Prologue
Any Malleable Object Interaction

Layer Prologue 2
Plug The Hole (Key 1 from [Any Malleable Object Interaction]).

Layer Base
Phone Interaction
Lamp Interaction
DD5 (Desk Drawer 5) Interaction
Suitcase Interaction
Suitcase Interaction - Shift
Tissue Box Interaction
Arena Painting Interaction
Sewer Painting Interaction
Backpack Interaction

Layer 5
Rotary Lock (Key 1 from [Arena Painting Interaction], Key 2 from [Sewer Painting Interaction]).
Phone Call (Key 1 from [Phone Interaction])

Layer 4
Gratuitous Māori (Key 1 from Rotary Lock, Key 2 from [Tissue Box Interaction] and [Suitcase Interaction - shift]).
Buckets 1 (Access room by Phone Call)

Layer 3
Pirate Redux (Access room by Phone Call; 5 Keys scattered around the room)
Buckets 2 (Key 1 from Buckets 1)
Tell Tales (Key 1 from [Lamp Interaction], Key 2 from [DD5 Interaction])
Look Up (Key 1 from Gratuitous Māori, Key 2 from [Wintreath Exploration])

Layer 2
Bike Lock 1 (Key 1 from Bucket 1/2, Key 2 from Pirate Redux)
Bike Lock 2 (Key 1 from Tell Tales, Key 2 from Look Up)
Simon Says (Key 1 from [Backpack Interaction], Key 2 from [Suitcase Interaction])

Layer 1
Keycards (Key 1 from Bike Lock 1, Key 2 from Bike Lock 2, Key 3 from Simon Says)

Layer 0
Unlock the Door (Key gained from Keycards)

Extra Layers
Riddles (Key 1 from Simon Says, Key 2 from [TV Interaction - On], Key 3 from [Suitcase Plug Interaction 1], Key 4 from [Suitcase Plug Interaction 2], Key 5 from [Menu Navigation]. Does not advance Escape, but provides hint mechanism.

What did you all think? I would appreciate any complaints, since that'll help out in making this game funner for everyone. Any general feedback and ideas for next time would also be appreciated. Thank you all for playing, especially for sticking around even after my errors. Ka kite and congrats on your freedom!

@Wintermoot, I'm sorry for holding up Summerend for so long.

I haven't tried one of these before and I enjoyed it a lot.

It may be inexperience, it may be coming in part-way, but I found there was a bit too much going on - I wasn't clear what had been solved and what still needed work. I don't think we were great at teamwork in that respect.

One suggestion for improvement - increase the atmospherics a little. For example, have water trickling in even once the hole was plugged. Mention sloshing through progressively deeper water as time goes by, sparks as water meets electronics, etc.  Perhaps have some practical (i.e. non-puzzle) steps available for RP survival.


Thank you very much for hosting @Elbbsas - you clearly put in a lot of work to set this up, and IMHO it worked very well.

Thanks so much for doing this! It was great fun. I will say, I imagined that something terrible would happen if we didn't escape the room by the end of the fair. Once Summersend ended, and we kept going, it took all the pressure off, and I stopped thinking about the game a lot. I feel that before that point, we were actually pretty good with teamwork, but after it, I sort of followed along with what other people were doing.

Thanks for doing this, Elbbsas! And thanks to everyone, especially the tourists, who took part and helped!

I found after the first Escape Room that it helped to keep an Excel spreadsheet with every riddle, puzzle, item, and anything else mentioned in the results posts so that I could have laid out in front of me everything that could possibly be used. I think if Elbbsas did that, though, it would probably unintentionally show us the way in a lot of puzzles, which I think would take part of the fun out of it.

I did appreciate the hints mechanism since I probably wouldn't've figured out some of the puzzles -- not because they were particularly hard, but because it's hard to think about a puzzle a different way after you've tried to solve it one way.

Anyway, I look forward to the next one!

I haven't tried one of these before and I enjoyed it a lot.

It may be inexperience, it may be coming in part-way, but I found there was a bit too much going on - I wasn't clear what had been solved and what still needed work. I don't think we were great at teamwork in that respect.

One suggestion for improvement - increase the atmospherics a little. For example, have water trickling in even once the hole was plugged. Mention sloshing through progressively deeper water as time goes by, sparks as water meets electronics, etc.  Perhaps have some practical (i.e. non-puzzle) steps available for RP survival.


Thank you very much for hosting @Elbbsas - you clearly put in a lot of work to set this up, and IMHO it worked very well.

That's a good idea. I will say that if you hit turn thirty, or if three days had no posts, water would've started gushing in, and after twenty more turns you would've drowned. But I was wary of adding too much noise (aka fluff and clutter) around the clues and the like in the early parts. I didn't think of including RP survival... I'll keep that in mind for next time.

I'm glad you were able to follow along enough to play! I've been trying to design these so people can jump in and out freely. (Inactivity seemed a bit of an issue when I was designing the first one). Congrats, you are the proof of concept! Do you think including links directly to the previous result posts help?

Thanks so much for doing this! It was great fun. I will say, I imagined that something terrible would happen if we didn't escape the room by the end of the fair. Once Summersend ended, and we kept going, it took all the pressure off, and I stopped thinking about the game a lot. I feel that before that point, we were actually pretty good with teamwork, but after it, I sort of followed along with what other people were doing.

That wouldn't be very fun! The last room took nearly a month too, and Summersend doesn't last nearly that long. I clearly need more practice in judging how long this game lasts.

And regarding teamwork -- when you and Gerrick were working on Buckets 1 and 2 I was pretty much one of those sports fans on the edge of my seat, cheering away. And that goes for all of you! You guys are awesome. Also, I put the big purple-writing riddle on the ceiling because your comment of "people rarely look up" amused me. These rooms crank a lot of mileage out of Schrödinger's cat.

Thanks for doing this, Elbbsas! And thanks to everyone, especially the tourists, who took part and helped!

I found after the first Escape Room that it helped to keep an Excel spreadsheet with every riddle, puzzle, item, and anything else mentioned in the results posts so that I could have laid out in front of me everything that could possibly be used. I think if Elbbsas did that, though, it would probably unintentionally show us the way in a lot of puzzles, which I think would take part of the fun out of it.

I did appreciate the hints mechanism since I probably wouldn't've figured out some of the puzzles -- not because they were particularly hard, but because it's hard to think about a puzzle a different way after you've tried to solve it one way.

Anyway, I look forward to the next one!

Yup, like a TV previously on ad, I'd unintentionally highlight what I thought important. Evelynx suggested after the last game that I should add a "history" section, which would be extremely useful aside from that flaw.

I'm glad the hints helped. Kinda wish I'd made them easier to access. They're a bit of a relic from when I considered making this more competitive: the person with the more bonus puzzles solved wins... a thing, probably tokens. But the idea didn't pan out because I was worried that unless I put a hard time limit on the room, people would just go for the bonus puzzles. I probably won't use the same kind of mechanism next time, but I'll be sure to include an in-universe hint depositor. (One that doesn't change the font, me thinks). It kept my "subtle" hints out of the narrative as much as possible.

Turn 20 Example

(Welp, I'm officially stupid. I know why "two five zero" was one guess, but where did "one five zero" come from? I genuinely can't figure out where you read to that. I think me knowing the solution's lumped me with a tunnel vision or ten =P).

And hints in general are difficult to balance when I know the solution, both in being too obvious and in being exceedingly unhelpful. So, I'm glad you found them useful!


In all seriousness, thank you all for participating. This game would be literally and metaphorically impossible if people didn't take part, so really, you're the ones that make raiding the haunted house of puzzlemania fun and worth doing. I'm glad you had fun, even if some puzzles hit the wall several times.

Speaking of haunted houses, I have puzzles to plan (and regret I hadn't planned them in time to fit in with Summersend's spooky theme). Ka kite tōku iwi!

@Wintermoot, I'm sorry for holding up Summerend for so long.

I don't think anyone minded.

But thank you for putting together such an awesome event for Summersend! I think the escape room was one of people's favourite events, and it's awesome seeing something so unique to you (in that I'm not sure anyone else here could pull one of these off) in action.

@Wintermoot, I'm sorry for holding up Summerend for so long.

I don't think anyone minded.

But thank you for putting together such an awesome event for Summersend! I think the escape room was one of people's favourite events, and it's awesome seeing something so unique to you (in that I'm not sure anyone else here could pull one of these off) in action.

Shucks, Mootles. =D